Madam Speaker, there is nothing quite like somebody putting words in your mouth. In terms of tax relief measures and the kinds of measures that are quite generic, those are very good things.
The member will not find a Reformer arguing that we should not increase basic exemptions for items such as the one mentioned by the member. In terms of strengthening communities, who can argue against motherhood? We want to strengthen communities. My point is that this government is doing things in an insensitive fashion.
The government is hurting coastal communities in particular. That was my point. The government's attempts to cut costs have tended to take away from the field and centralize. As a consequence rural and coastal communities, specifically in terms of the fisheries file, have been very much damaged. It is ongoing.
This week we are talking about light stations on the coast. The light stations on the west coast are more important to many rural communities than are the post offices in Ontario communities for example. They are much more important. If those light stations were in Ontario, with as many Liberal members of Parliament as there are in Ontario the government would not be doing what it is doing to the light keepers on the B.C. coast. That is just one tiny example, but the fisheries file has all kinds of them; what has happened to our field personnel, our enforcement personnel and our biologists.
Entrepreneurs cannot try to get anything done when it comes to developing a new fishery. There is nobody there to be their advocate when they talk to the Department of Fisheries and Oceans. This is a big item. Thousands of jobs are going begging in B.C. right now in shellfish aquaculture alone because of a lack of people within DFO to be an advocate to either keep existing operations going or to allow new entrepreneurs to do their thing. It is very sad.